CULVs are basically netbooks on a cocktail of powerful steroids. They have equally impressive battery life and boot speed, but they come with much larger screens, keyboards, and hard drives. Essentially, CULVs are notebooks the way notebooks were meant to be. Thin, portable, convenient machines with a very low price point. Today, Gizmodo reports that Dell's first offering in this brave new category has just been released to the world.

The Inspiron 11z is meant to replace the awesome Mini 12, Dell's previous 12” netbook. The 11z has an 11.6” display, and the same basic mouse button/touchpad configuration as the Mini 10. This is going to be an issue for some people, as the Mini 10's set-up is notoriously unpopular. Personally, I've never had an issue with mine, but I'm by far in the minority here.

This new CULV has a low-voltage Intel 1.2 GHz Celeron processor and runs Windows Vista Home Premium. If you're looking at getting an 11z, I'd wait until October to get one that comes with Win 7 loaded up. The $399 version of the 11z comes with 2GB of RAM and a 250 GB HD. It only packs a 3 cell battery though, and there is no current option for a 6 cell. That's a little annoying, but its also something Dell can fix pretty easily if there's enough demand.